At times in Christian thought, the priorities of pure doctrine and passionate mission have been perceived as opposites on a spectrum where emphasis on one results in neglect of the other, but without one, the other is deficient and doomed to crumble. Mission without doctrine is like a body without a skeleton, but apart from mission, doctrine is like dry bones in a museum. A Lutheran Reformission maintains a dual emphasis, resulting in doctrinal missions as well as missional doctrine.

Thursday, November 26, 2015

For this week's newspapers, I answered a question about the Good Samaritan and Syrian Refugees:

Q: Does the Bible offer any
principles about what the U.S. Government policy should be on whether to take
refugees from Syria and the Middle East?
Are the parable of the Good Samaritan or the Old Testament laws
regarding treatment of foreigners relevant to the question?

While many people might read the
parable of the Good Samaritan as a moral lesson about charity and how a person
should respond to others in need, it is actually about much more. While it certainly is good to help those who
are suffering (which other passages of Scripture reveal), the parable is, first
and foremost, about Jesus Himself. In
the parable, the character of the Good Samaritan is not a president or a
senator. In fact, the character of the
Good Samaritan is not even any ordinary human.
The Good Samaritan is Jesus!

And the character in the parable that
represents humanity is not even the priest or the Levite, but instead, the
victim is the character in the parable which plays our role. Jesus, the Good Samaritan, comes down into
our uncleanness to cure and heal us, completely apart from our worthiness or
ability to repay. Understanding this
reality completely changes how we approach the parable and rules out its
application to a government’s acceptance of refugees, unless we want to suggest
that the Government or the president are our savior.

Many who have attempted this
application have also made reference to a handful of Old Testament laws
regarding the treatment of foreigners. The
difficulty with this attempt is that those laws were not universal laws given
to humanity, but rather, they were given particularly to the nation of
Israel. So, if we were to suggest that
these laws carry over into the present day, rather than being fulfilled in
Jesus, we would have to apply them not to the United States Government, since
it is not constituted by God or committed to serving Him, but rather to the
Church.

Probably the most relevant passages
of Scripture in relation to this issue are the New Testament sections that describe
the role of government, particularly in Paul’s Epistles. In these passages, the role of Governments
which are not Ancient Israel is consistently described as being to provide
safety and stability to their citizens.
The Church, then, has the role of helping those in need under the
umbrella of that stable and secure nation.

So, in the present circumstances, the
Government’s role is to do whatever is in the best interest of our nation’s
security, even if it is not the most humanitarian choice for those outside of
our borders, because its duty is to its own citizens. If it comes down to helping people from other
parts of the globe with the result of incurring a substantial risk to its own
citizens’ safety, or providing security to its own citizens while denying help
to non-citizens, our government’s Biblically-mandated priority is to protect
its own citizens.

The Church’s role, on the other hand,
is to help those in need. So, if our
government should choose to allow the entry of refugees, then Christians are
called to demonstrate the Lord’s mercy by helping those who arrive on our
shores. If the government determines the
threat to our security is too great, then we are still able to provide help
through the hands of our fellow Christians and their Churches in the parts of
the world where the refugees find a home.

The government has its own particular
God-given role, and the Church has its own, but as we address these
circumstances, it is important to distinguish those roles and apply the proper
scriptures to the proper roles as we seek Biblical answers to the questions at
hand.

Monday, November 9, 2015

For this week's newspapers, I answered a question about the alleged contradictions between the teachings of Jesus and Paul:

Q: Do St. Paul’s writings in the
Epistles of the New Testament contradict the things that Jesus said as recorded
in the Gospels? Did Paul add to or alter
Jesus’ message when he was writing to the churches, and what gave him authority
in those churches if he was not a follower at the time of the Resurrection?

This is a recurring accusation during
the most recent two centuries of Christianity:
That Paul’s teachings in the epistles do not align with the things said
by Jesus during our records of His earthly life and ministry. The exact accusation often varies, with those
on one end of the spectrum accusing Paul of being too doctrinal in comparison
to their perception of Jesus as a free spirit whose ministry centered on
helping people, and those on the other end of the spectrum accusing Paul of
being too lenient regarding matters of the Law—whether those found in the Old
Testament or matters of personal holiness—while they believed Jesus to have been
more strict about these things.

Usually this kind of response to the
content of the New Testament results in a person diminishing portions of the
New Testament in favor of others, rather than trying to reconcile the
statements and understand the original intent of Jesus speech or Paul’s writing
to discover that they actually do agree.
When it falls short of outright rejection of Paul’s epistles or other
New Testament books, this kind of approach to Jesus and Paul usually results at
the very least in some imaginative story-telling to explain how the early
Church came to a unanimous consensus regarding Paul’s letters if they are
actually so far removed from Jesus’ teachings.

One way in which it is often quite
simple to reconcile the teachings of Jesus and Paul that seem to contradict on
the surface is to dig deeper into what they are actually communicating. Since most readers in this part of the world
are limited to reading Scripture in English, we sometimes forget that Jesus did
not speak and Paul did not write in English, but we are reading a translation
of their words. In translation, there
are often not direct equivalents for the words being translated, and English
often cannot convey the time and duration as precisely as Greek did. So, even if we have the most accurate
translation possible, a reader might understand the English word differently
than the translator intended to use it, or we may miss that a particular
statement was made only for a particular circumstance while another was made as
a standing, universal proclamation. The
majority of contradiction accusations I see can be solved in this way, and even
for those who do not have access to original language training, looking at a
verse in multiple reliable English translations sometimes clarifies the intent
of the passage.

Another difficulty for those who
propose a contradiction is that the New Testament itself describes that the 11
original disciples of Jesus had access to Paul’s letters, and they examined him
and his message, ultimately endorsing him and approving that He was proclaiming
the same thing as they had learned from Jesus.
Likewise, we have no record that any person at the time of the writing
or in the following century ever proposed that there was a problem between Paul’s
teachings and the things said and done by Jesus. Instead, it was universally understood that
Paul was writing explanation to the churches about what the life, death, and
resurrection of Jesus accomplished and how they were to apply this to life in
their congregations.

When the New Testament is read with
care to understand the original meaning the authors intended and the history is
taken in full perspective, it becomes exceedingly clear that Paul was, in fact,
proclaiming the same message as Jesus and pointing people to the authentic
Jesus and not to some new formulation that was hijacking Jesus for other
goals.

Questions may be submitted by email to revjpeterson@stjohnsburt.org or sent
to P.O. Box 195; Burt, IA 50522.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

For this week's newspapers, I answered a reader question about how many sins it takes for a Christian to lose salvation:

Q: How much sin can a person
commit and still be accepted by God into eternal life at the final
judgment? How much sin should we on
earth tolerate before we no longer consider a person a Christian?

Peter once asked Jesus a question
about how many times he should forgive a person who had sinned against
him. Thinking according to the Pharisees
tradition of that time, Peter was expecting an answer in the single digits,
perhaps seven. Jesus answer, however,
was “seventy times seven.”

While Jesus’ answer to Peter deals
with how many times people should forgive sins committed by and against one
another, some of us, like Pastors or parents, are assigned the vocation to take
concern over whether a person’s sins against God are forgiven and where the person
stands in relation to God. Even though
not in a position of God-given authority over them, a Christian friend or
neighbor might also be concerned over where a given person stands in relation
to God’s forgiveness because they fear their neighbor may be in danger of
suffering God’s eternal punishment for sin for themselves.

It helps to begin with the fact that
Jesus paid for all sin—“the sin of the world” as John says in his Gospel. Those who rely on Him to forgive them receive
His grace, and have no more penalty left to account for on their own. However, as long as they live this side of
the grave, they remain incapable of perfectly refraining from sin. While we do not excuse sin or treat it
lightly, we also acknowledge that this sin too is forgiven, and not merely the
sin committed prior to trusting in Jesus.

Some might wrongly conclude that this
teaching of grace then frees a person to live in any way that seems appealing
and act in any way which feels right.
St. Paul answers this question in his letter to the Romans, though, by
responding to the question of “Should we sin more so that grace might abound?”
with the strongest possible denial the Greek language has to offer—“Certainly
not!” or “May it never be!”

Having been forgiven, the Christian
is called then to avoid sin and seek to live in agreement with God’s will—even
though they continue to fail. This is
why many of our churches begin the week’s services with a Confession of Sins,
after which the pastor proclaims God’s forgiveness once again to those who
trust in Jesus. When it comes to how
many sins a person might commit before forfeiting salvation, it is not a matter
of counting, but even for the Christian remains a matter of faith. Those who trust in Jesus remain
forgiven.

However, there is a difference
between one who commits sin and one who embraces it as a lifestyle or adopts it
as an identity. When those assigned the
task of spiritual care examine those under our authority, this is what we
consider: What do they confess? For those who acknowledge their sin and
struggle against it, we act with compassion, pronouncing once again God’s grace
to forgive their sin. On the other hand
when faced with those who love and embrace their sin or consider it a defining
characteristic of their identity, we must pronounce God’s Law and warning
instead, in hopes that they will return and be forgiven, because defending
their sin contradicts their claim to trust in Jesus.

While it remains solely the privilege of God Himself to know the contents of a
person’s heart and the status of their soul, we here on earth can observe the
words and actions of our neighbor and warn or encourage them with the
applicable laws or promises which our Lord has given.

Monday, October 12, 2015

For this week's newspapers, I answered a question about whether faith or obedience are able to earn blessing from God:

Q: Does God grant earthly
blessings to people based on the sincerity of their faith, and does He bless
Christians with health, wealth, or other prosperity based on the degree to
which they obey Him?

It would be easy to make conclusions
that God’s blessings in this world depend on the performance of the individuals
receiving them, because such a conclusion would fit with the majority of
religious thought that has taken place around the world throughout history, and
would fit with the way that we are used to things working among humans in
business and commerce.

However, no matter how reasonable
this conclusion seems in light of our earthly experience with other
authorities, the Lord who has revealed Himself as the Trinity of Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit does not operate on those same principles.

When various religions make
propositions about earning a god’s blessing, they are operating under the
assumption of a deity that does not desire to do good to us, but that we need
to achieve a certain level of obedience in order to force his hand. On the other hand, the God of the Bible is
consistently portrayed as one who desires to give and to bless, and we are
undeserving recipients of His gracious gifts.

This is particularly true in
spiritual matters, where God forgives sins as a pure gift because of the
crucified sacrifice of Jesus, but it also applies to the many earthly blessings
over which we have limited control, such as weather, the growth of crops, or
good health. Jesus comments on this with
His words in Matthew 5 that God makes the sun to shine on both the evil and the
good and the rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous alike.

We can also observe that in this
life, those whose faith appears deepest do not always experience perfect health
or abundant wealth. Instead, they may
sometimes suffer more than others while those who commit vile acts seem to
prosper. Many of the heroes of the Bible
are perfect examples of this, as the Apostles and Prophets often faced fierce
opposition and the majority of them died for their faith rather than
experiencing earthly success.

There is one sense in which this is
true, but it functions in a natural way rather than a supernatural one. This is because the creator of the world in
which we live is also the giver of the laws by which we are commanded to live
in it. As a result, a great deal of
suffering and tragedy can be avoided when God’s laws are obeyed. So, for example, the God who created nature,
the body, and family relationships gives laws which, if obeyed, would allow a
person to avoid many conflicts, diseases and disorders, while the probability
of numerous natural consequences increases dramatically when a person chooses
to depart from that law.

Ultimately, understanding this truth
may help a person avoid a great deal of false guilt that might arise if they
did live faithfully yet see their desires unfulfilled or find themselves
experiencing suffering or tragedy. It
also serves to remind us that as long as we live in this world, our obedience
will remain imperfect and we will still face trials and suffering, but we look
forward with hope to a resurrected life which we receive as pure gift and in
which these things will be no more. Even
though the promises we do see of abundance and prosperity in Scripture are left
partially and unevenly fulfilled in this world, they will be fully and
completely fulfilled in the New Creation to come.

Monday, September 28, 2015

For this week's newspapers I answered a question about whether humans have free will and to what extent:

Q: Is it true that humans have a
free will, or are our life and eternity laid down by another power which causes
us to be destined for the events which happen?

This is a question which both
religion and philosophy have both struggled over the course of centuries, and
among Christians, it has historically been the source of some of the most
heated disagreements about doctrinal matters.

Since for people who live in the
Western world, particularly in the United States, much of our way of life is
founded on the ideas of freedom and opportunity, we often get the impression
that this freedom applies in all areas of life.

When we are talking about earthly
things, this is true for the most part. The
majority of the time, humans do have free will when it comes to merely earthly
matters. So, when it comes to what we
eat, where we live, the things we purchase, what we will do for an occupation
and how we will carry out that occupation, humans have a free choice, provided
the choices of their fellow humans do not impose upon them.

However, the Bible makes clear that
in spiritual matters, circumstances are far different. Some of the highlights among these include
Paul’s statement in the book of Romans, quoting from the Psalms, that “No one
seeks God” and “No one does good, not even one,” along with the prophet Jeremiah’s statement
that the human heart is deceitful above all things.

Paul also makes statements throughout the books of Romans, Galatians, and
Ephesians that salvation is “by grace,” that is that it is a pure gift. Now if our salvation is a pure gift, except
that we must exercise an act of free will to make a choice, then it is no
longer pure gift, but rather the result of the human work of making a
choice.

In response to this, some have
suggested that there is no free will at all in humans. They conclude that humans have no free will
at all in spiritual things, and some even extend this to earthly things to the
extent that all things are caused and determined by God with humans merely
carrying out what has been decreed.

This oversimplifies a highly-nuanced
teaching of Scripture, though, whether we apply this idea, called determinism
or fatalism, to only spiritual things or to all of life. Simple answers are always attractive, but
rarely manage to answer the question with the full depth of Scripture.

The witness of the Bible’s authors is
consistently that God receives full credit for any person whose sin is forgiven
and that they played no role in earning or deserving that gift. However, when speaking of those who receive
the punishment their own sins deserve, God never receives the blame, but that
blame is rather squarely assigned to the person who committed the sin.

There is also a distinction regarding
whether the question is asked of a Christian or of an unconverted person. For those who are apart from Christ, it is as
if they possess a free will, but it is restrained to only choose evil in
spiritual matters, and in capable of choosing good. However, for those who have been given the
gift of trust in Jesus, that will has been un-chained from that point forward, the
new person created through faith and Baptism does indeed have a free will, although
it continues to struggle against the old sinner that still dwells within them
for the remainder of their natural life.

Ultimately, humans do possess a free
will, which all people are able to exercise in merely earthly matters, but none
at all as it touches on salvation; and even after being freed by the Holy
Spirit’s work it continues to struggle against sin’s restraints until they
depart this life to await the final Resurrection with their Lord.

Sunday, September 13, 2015

My article for this week's newspapers answers a question regarding the unity of the body and soul and those who would suggest one is superior or that the two can be mis-matched:

Q: Is it possible for a person to
be “trapped in the wrong body” or for there to be a mismatch between who they
are physically and spiritually?

It used to be that when a person
said, “I am a marathon runner trapped in a sumo wrestler’s body,” or “I am a 29
year old trapped in a 70 year old body,” that it was merely a figure of speech
that a person was using to indicate that their attitude did not line up with
their physical attributes.

Today, however, such claims are
regularly stated with the intention of describing what a person believes to be
a factual set of circumstances. News
stories abound where such statements are made about a given person’s race, sex,
health, or abilities, but those who hear such claims, particularly Christians, would
do well to consider the implications of such claims for our understanding of
the human person if they would be factual.

Philosophers in Greek and Roman times
often debated whether a person was composed of two or three or another number
of components parts. Such explanations
would include component parts such as body, soul, mind, and spirit, and in such
systems of thought, it was usually proposed that the immaterial elements made
up the real person and the body was portrayed either as incidental or sometimes
even like a sort of prison.

In other parts of the world, a variety of religious philosophies teach that the
“real” person is the spirit, which is then born repeatedly through a series of several
lifetimes, taking on different bodies.
The common theme between these views of the human person is that they
begin with components, move to the idea of the person, then assign one
component as the one that is essential to humanity and the others as
auxiliary.

Biblical understanding of humanity, on the other hand, sees the person,
although composed of both material and immaterial aspects, as created
whole. This can be seen from the creation
accounts of Genesis to Paul’s epistles, and everywhere between. Any distinction or discrepancy we perceive
between these aspects is only the result of a fallen world, and something we
will only experience during our mortal lives, because we will be made whole at the
resurrection.

There are times when a person might perceive
a difference between the roles or traits that society expects of them based on
their outward characteristics, and they make such statements as a way of
legitimately challenging the assigned traits which arise from culture rather
than Scripture.

In other cases, particularly those
regarding gender, a person may suffer a biochemical irregularity which causes
them to, feel, behave, or perceive themselves in ways that do not fit the body
they are born with. In such cases it is
not that a wrong combination of material and immaterial elements have been
joined in the person, or that one element is the real person and the other a
mistake. Instead, even though they were not
created to feel the discord they experience, a part of them is not functioning
as designed for them to be comfortable as the integrated human being that they
were created to be.

As Christians navigate these kind of
difficulties themselves or help their neighbors who may suffer from such false
perceptions, we recognize that they are a whole person, and since we cannot see
or understand the inner workings of their immaterial elements, the body God
gave them and its genetic code is the only reliable marker of who that person
is before God.

In light of this, we teach that one
aspect of the person is not real while the other is false, but that they are a
whole person. Accordingly, we seek to the best of our
ability to assist them in embracing and living out their reality as a whole
person, and while they endure these struggles in this life, we support and
encourage them through the gifts our Lord has given in His Church until our
Lord returns to make them whole and align all things as He designed them to
be.

Monday, August 31, 2015

For this week's newspapers, I answered the final follow-up in a series of 3 about what makes and does not make a person sinful by answering how a Christian chooses about what to do when the action is neither commanded nor forbidden by genuine divine laws:

Q: If it is not the things we
consume or touch, or even our actions, that determine our status before God,
then how do Christians choose a course of action in decisions which involve
things beyond the Ten Commandments?

When a person understands the fact
that their status with God the Father is determined by Jesus and His perfect
life and crucified death rather than their own performance, it can be a
difficult adjustment because it seems at first to leave a vacuum in the area of
ethics and morality.

However, the Christian still honors
God’s law, and even desires to keep it, but as a result of God’s goodness to
them rather than as a condition of salvation.
When it regards which actions are a sin, this is guided by the Ten
Commandments, as understood in the light of all of Scripture, but there are
many choices where none of the options would seem to violate one of these
commandments, but a choice still remains to be made.

Sometimes, there are clear New
Testament instructions on a matter, usually dealing with matters of the way the
Church carries out its work. One of the
clearest examples of this is Paul’s instructions to Timothy and Titus about the
qualifications for pastors and elders.

In another instance, there was a
question about whether the gentile Christians should eat certain meats or do
other things that were forbidden by the Old Testament ceremonial law. The result was that the apostles held a
council at Jerusalem and determined that these laws did not apply to Gentiles
when they became Christians, but that they should observe a few customs out of
respect for their Jewish Christian neighbors.

Paul Himself had to make a choice
about the law of circumcision when he began to enlist the help of non-Jewish men
as associates in the mission. On one
occasion, he decided that Timothy should be circumcised like the Jews were
according to their law, but on another, he refused to allow Barnabas to be
circumcised.

This is because it was neither commanded nor forbidden that gentiles to be
circumcised like Jewish people were before Jesus came, so Paul chose what best
taught the people what they needed to understand. This is what he means when he talks about
“becoming all things to all men” in 1 Corinthians 9.

Because Timothy would be serving in a
setting where he would be among Jews, Paul allowed for him to be circumcised so
that it would not be an obstacle to his congregation hearing and believing the
Gospel. On the other hand, Barnabas
would be serving in a time and place where Judaizers were seeking to force the
Old Testament law upon Christians, so Paul refused to allow his circumcision in
order to demonstrate the Christians’ freedom from Old Testament ceremonial
laws.

In both cases, Paul made the decision
that most clearly provided a path for people to hear and believe the Gospel
without the corruption of false teaching—making concessions for the sake of
those who might be weak, but standing firmly against those whose pride
undermined the Gospel.

Christians are called to similar
commitments when faced with present customs and behaviors that are matters of
controversy, but don’t relate to the sins specified in the Ten
Commandments. This would include things
like alcohol or tobacco use, many expressions of language, and displays of
wealth, among many others. The
Christian’s goal is to make such choices in the way that avoids being an
obstacle for the Gospel or which tears down obstacles placed by others.

So, when we make choices, we try to
do what would be least confrontational to our neighbors who are offended by
certain things because they are misinformed or fearful, but when confronted
with opponents who seek to enforce their choices upon us out of pride, then we
are called to stand against them so that our neighbors’ freedom and confidence
in the Gospel would not be assaulted.

Questions may be submitted by email to revjpeterson@stjohnsburt.org or sent
to P.O. Box 195; Burt, IA 50522.

Monday, August 17, 2015

For this week's newspapers, I answered a follow-up question to last week's answer about whether physical things can be inherently sinful:

Q: If it is not certain substances
or objects which are the source of sinfulness, then what about alcohol, drugs,
tobacco, gambling, and other things which play a role in so many problems in
society? Does the same method apply to
examining the morality of actions?

This question has made frequent
appearance in English-speaking Christianity, particularly here in the United
States. Since so many societal ills
involve abuse of alcohol, drugs, or other substances, people sometimes conclude
that if you could rid society of the substance, you could eliminate the
problem.

Likewise, with actions, they often
conclude that since an action has caused problems for some people in some
circumstances, that the action itself must be evil—or at least in decrying the
abuse of the action, they give the appearance that the action itself is a
sin.

However, such an approach is not in
step with the worldview of Scripture or of the historic way the Church has
approached such question. Instead, honest
analysis reveals that the problem is not with objects, or in some cases actions,
but rather with the impure desires and motivations which drive people to misuse
them. The problem is not in the use or possession of
the things, or the performance of many actions, but in their abuse.

So, for example, the Old Testament
frequently used wine as an illustration of joy and celebration and made other
positive references to alcohol consumption, and St. Paul even instructed Timothy
to use wine to aid with digestion.
Meanwhile, in the very same books of the Bible, the authors warned
against drunkenness—the misuse of alcohol.

Similarly, there are many
prescription medications that are beneficial when used as prescribed, but
harmful if misused. Even in the case of
illicit drugs, it is not as if sin was written into the chemical compound, but
because the person is harming their own body by their use (5th
Commandment), disobeying lawful authority (4th commandment), and
treating God’s blessing of the body in a wasteful manner (7th
Commandment).

Sexual intimacy provides an excellent
example where this idea can be applied to an action. When it occurs between a husband and a wife
in the context of marriage, it is a blessed thing which results in numerous
benefits to the relationship of the couple, the foremost of which is the
potential of conceiving a child.

In contrast, when it is used in any
other context, it results in spiritual harm, as well as increased risk of
several kinds of physical and emotional consequences. Similar to the way it is with things above,
it is not the action which is sin, but the wrong use of the action.

Consider also the popular saying that
“Money is the root of all evil.” This
thought by many to be a saying from the Bible, but in reality it is a
misquotation of a Biblical statement, which really says, “The love of money is
the root of all evil.” The misquoted
statement attributes the sin to the object of money, but the genuine statement
rightly blames its wrong use, by loving it, as the real problem.

The Prohibition era in our country
provides an excellent case study in this principle. The Temperance movement advanced the idea
that ridding the country of alcohol would result in a utopian society that was
free of the problems people felt were most pressing at the time. In reality, people obtained alcohol in other
ways, discovered other substances to abuse in its place, and violent organized
crime began to flourish as a direct result of what was intended to be a
beneficial reform.

Ultimately, it is this way with all
sins. Scholars of the commandments have
rightly observed that every other commandment really points back to the First, “You
shall have no other gods.” Whenever a
person misuses an object or an action, they are treating it as a god—no different
than someone who bows down before a carved idol.

The 2nd through 8th
Commandments describe particular ways in which this occurs, and the final
commandments about coveting bring the idea full circle by revealing that even
the desire to have or do those things which one does not have the right to have
or do is itself a sin even though the thing has not been obtained or the action
accomplished.

Thursday, August 6, 2015

My article from this week's newspapers answers a question about whether there are certain things that can make a Christian unrighteous by having contact with them:

Q: Are there certain things that
would be sinful for Christians to consume, hear, see, or come into contact with
like there were in the Old Testament? If
so, what would those be?

It seems that human understand
instinctively that something has gone wrong in this world and that living here comes
with a certain degree of spiritual danger.
In an effort to remedy this, prohibitions on contact with certain items
in the physical world are a common feature among religions throughout the
world.

A common example is eating the meat
of certain animals, or meat at all. For
others, they see certain places as forbidden or certain words that should never
be uttered. They may even propose that
those who hear forbidden words or see others committing a forbidden act or come
too close to a forbidden thing are made unholy or unclean by their
contact.

The Old Testament laws given to
Israel bear a resemblance to the description above, but those who read them
closely will discover that there is a distinct difference in the way that they
approach this compared to the religions of the world.

To begin with, Genesis describes several centuries where the Law of Moses is
not in force, yet people like Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob and his
twelve sons are not regarded as any less accepted because they do not have it
or follow it. This seems to indicate
that these laws are for a certain time, place and purpose rather than being
universal decrees.

In addition, the objects and actions
they forbid are not treated as defective in themselves, but they are to be
avoided to teach a greater truth about sin.
So the people avoid touching lepers or certain animals and they follow
certain grooming rituals as a way of showing them that sin corrupts them and
must be cleansed.

The ultimate goal of all of this was
a promise given as early as the third chapter of Genesis that a particular
descendent of Eve would one day arise to provide the permanent remedy for
sin.

When Jesus arrives, he disregards all
of the extra regulations the Pharisees had made regarding what to avoid and how
to wash if one might have contacted something or someone who was unclean. He tells them, “There is nothing outside a
person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a
person are what defile him… Whatever goes into a person from outside cannot
defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?”

We also never see him go to the
priests or the temple to be cleansed after he touches and heals a leper or
someone with an unclean discharge or a demon.
This would have been required not only by the Pharisees but also the Law
of Moses. However, Jesus could not be
made unclean, therefor had no need for cleansing. Instead, his inherent cleanness flowed out to
the person to heal them rather than their uncleanness being transferred to
him.

When the Apostle Paul was confronted
with people who thought that Christians ought to avoid consuming or coming into
contact with certain things, he responds by writing, “Therefore let no one pass
judgment on you in questions of food and drink... “Do not handle, Do not taste,
Do not touch” …These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made
religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in
stopping the indulgence of the flesh.”

Jesus and Paul both demonstrate that
what causes our problem with God is not what comes into us from outside but
what comes out of our own hearts and desires.
For Christians, it is not a thing itself that is bad, such as food,
drink, sexual intimacy, or any other earthly element, but rather when it is
used in a way that is inconsistent with the Creator’s will. The sin comes not from the earthly thing, but
from our sinful desire to misuse it against our neighbors, against our own
physical and spiritual well-being, and against the Lord who gave it.

Monday, July 20, 2015

For this week's newspapers, I answered a question about the different lengths and translations of the Lord's Prayer in English-speaking churches:

Q: Why do some churches say the
Lord’s Prayer with the line, “Forgive us our debts” while others use “Forgive
us our trespasses,” and why do some stop with “deliver us from evil” while
others have an additional line afterward?

While the Lord’s Prayer is considered
the universal prayer among Christians because it was given by our Lord Himself,
the differences noted in the question are matters of text and translation.

The account of the giving of the Lord’s
Prayer is told twice in the Bible—once by Matthew, and once by Luke. Many ancient manuscripts of Matthew’s account
include the line “for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever
and ever. Amen” at the end of the
prayer. The ancient manuscripts of Luke,
in comparison, do not typically show this line.
In fact, many of the manuscripts of Luke are also missing the line, “but
deliver us from evil.”

These differences between Matthew and
Luke’s recording of the Lord’s Prayer account for the diversity of length in
the prayer. The most likely explanation
is that the line, “deliver us from evil” is original to the prayer, but that
those who copied Luke’s Gospel accidentally omitted it on a few occasions.

The longer ending of Matthew’s prayer
probably arises because as it was used in the liturgies of the early church of
the first century, similar to the way that “Glory be to the Father, and to the
Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall
be. Amen.” is typically added to the end of Psalms among
Christians.

Since Matthew’s Gospel was intended
as a catechism for instructing people who had come to Christianity from
Judaism, he would likely have included the prayer in the form it was said in
the liturgy. Some liturgies of the time
even included an even longer ending “…and the glory, of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit for ever.
Amen.” And on rare occasions, an
ancient copy of Matthew is even found with this very long ending included in
the prayer.

So, when churches use a longer or
shorter version of the Lord’s Prayer, it is primarily just the difference
between the version of the prayer recorded in Matthew and the version recorded
in Luke—and both are Biblical.

The difference between “forgive us
our debts” and “forgive us our trespasses” is one of translation in addition to
synonyms used for sin by Matthew and Luke.
The Matthew version uses a Greek word very similar to the English word “debt,”
while the Luke version uses the word that is the typical word for “sins” in the
New Testament. Some more modern attempts
at translating the Lord’s Prayer have even attempted to use the translation “forgive
us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us,” but they have not been
widely accepted.

When the word “debts” is used in the
Lord’s Prayer, it is because that particular translation is based on the King
James tradition of translating the Gospel of Matthew. The translation of “trespasses” has its roots
in the Tyndale Bible and the Book of Common Prayer, which pre-date the King
James Bible by several decades, so it is actually the older translation into
English, although it may seem new to some who grew up hearing the petition with
the word “debts.”

Because of its use in the Book of
Common Prayer for Anglican worship, “trespasses” became the default translation
of all the natively-English traditions of Christianity. For Lutherans (who spoke German upon arriving
in America) and Catholics (who conducted the Mass in Latin until recent years),
they also picked up the translation “trespasses” upon beginning to worship in
English, making it the majority version of the prayer in the present day.

Regardless of the translation,
though, the meaning of the petition is the same. When we sin, we trespass against the boundary
of God’s law, and sins committed by humans create a debt that we owe both to
God and the neighbors we sin against, which can only be paid back by Jesus
crucified death. Each of the words
emphasizes a different nuance of this truth, but all point to the same problem
and the same Savior who is its remedy.

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

For this week's newspapers, I answered a reader question about displaying flags in church:

Q: Why is the American flag often
displayed in the sanctuary of churches?
Is it appropriate to have a symbol of the nation in the midst of the
worship of God, or does it violate the separation of church and state?

In spite of the fact that flags have
been present for as long as most presently-living individuals can remember, the
installation of flags in church sanctuaries is actually a relatively recent and
primarily American development.

The earliest Christians would
certainly not have had national symbols among them when they gathered, because
they were considered criminals by the Roman Empire for refusing to worship
Caesar as god, and throughout Medieval Europe, flags and other national symbols
were typically considered something for the ruling classes, and not displayed
among the common people or in their churches.

When the American Revolution began,
patriotic sentiments rose among citizens, churches with a more uniquely
American ethos began to see the flag displayed outside of churches, sometimes
draped from the pulpit for certain occasions and carried in Sunday School or
Vacation Bible School processions. This
grew in frequency during the Civil War, but was still not common among more
internationally oriented churches, such as Lutherans, Orthodox, and Roman
Catholics.

The two World Wars of the 20th
century, and the racial and ethnic biases that accompanied them, are largely
responsible for the wider acceptance of flag display inside of church
buildings, even moving them from the entryways or fellowship halls right up
into the front of the church itself. Today,
there is no Canon Law regarding flag display, and it is left to the Diocese or
Congregation to decide among Roman Catholics.
Flag display is more disputed among the Orthodox, who do not typically
have as close a relationship with governments as the Roman Church.

For Lutherans, who were some of the
last holdouts against flag display, and other people who were ethnically
German, World War 1 was the advent of flag display in their churches as a way
of refuting accusations that they were sympathizers with the Kaiser in Germany
because they still conducted services in German.
In World War 2, flag display became nearly universal in order to avoid
similar accusations, and German worship also declined rapidly at this time in
favor of English.

The final volley which cemented flag
display in churches was the Flag Day proclamation in 1954, in which President
Eisenhower signed the act adding the words “under god” to the Pledge of
Allegiance. Coupled with the patriotism
which accompanied the Cold War, this convinced most of the remaining holdouts
to end their opposition to flag display in churches, and the Russian Orthodox
also began adopting flag display at this time because of accusations of Soviet
sympathies for conducting services in Russian.

Today, support for flag display in
churches is common, but not as common as it was in the Cold War era. One concern raised about the display of flags
in churches is that it gives the appearance that the nation or its government
are being worshipped or that they have a place equal to or nearly-equal to
God. Others raise the objection that the
Church is an international body which is composed of all nations, and therefore
the appearance of loyalty to a particular nation is inappropriate.

Others are uneasy with the
possibility of giving the appearance that the church endorses the actions of
the nation. This fear arose in the past
during wars which might have been considered unjust. Similar concerns are rising again today when
the laws of the nation are becoming more at odds with the teachings of the
Church, and the likelihood that the government will become openly hostile to
certain churches and their members is rising.

On the other hand, some point to the
fact that obedience to lawful authority is a virtue promoted in the Fourth
Commandment and that the New Testament encourages believers to submit to
governing authorities, assuming it obvious that obedience to God outweighs
loyalty to the nation.

Today, with a population of pastors
and members who are farther removed from the two World Wars and the Cold War,
we may very well see more careful examination of the practice of displaying the
national flag in churches, but the ultimate conclusion and how that will impact
continued display of the flag remains to be seen.

Monday, June 8, 2015

For this week's newspapers, I answered a question about Christians doing Yoga:Q: What is the source for Yoga
exercise and are there any spiritual components to it? Are there any concerns that Christians should
have with engaging in Yoga?

When many North Americans think of
Yoga, the image that comes to mind is the slow movements, static postures, and
controlled breathing of demonstration videos and popular exercise classes found
in the Western world. Although this
discipline gives a first impression of the foreign and exotic, most would not immediately
detect anything obviously spiritual about these exercises.

However, the origins of Yoga are
deeply spiritual. They originate in
India and the surrounding area centuries ago, and served as a method of
spiritual advancement in the Hindu religion.
In Hinduism, it is taught that people experience many lifetimes in this
world through reincarnation, and their experience of subsequent lives is based
on Karma—a measurement of guilt they build up based on their actions in
previous lives.

Because adherents to Hinduism desire
to have a better life in their next incarnation or to escape the cycle of
reincarnation entirely and give up their individual identity and be reabsorbed
into the divine, they developed a set of spiritual disciplines called Yogas
which they believe will achieve that goal.

The Yoga exercise with which we are
familiar in North America is one of those disciplines, called Hatha Yoga. There are at least 5 other disciplines that involve
meditation, knowledge, work, and spiritual devotion, and a final yoga that uses
the methods of the others together to achieve the goal of higher consciousness
and realization of the divine.

Hatha Yoga was originally developed
with the understanding that one could use positions of the body to achieve spiritual
results. In particular, by imitating the
shapes or postures of elements of nature, Hindus understand that they can
appropriate the characteristics of those entities for themselves.

In light of this, and the growing
popularity of Yoga as exercise in our country, many Christians have faced the
need to evaluate whether Yoga is advisable for Christians, or whether those who
participate are flirting with or actually committing idolatry by engaging in
the worship of a non-Christian religion.

Some have proposed that Yoga can be
sanitized of its spiritual elements so that a person can attain the physical
and emotional benefits that it claims to offer without concerns of spiritual
transgression. Some have even developed “Christian
Yoga” classes that replace the Hindu spiritual elements with Scripture or
prayer. Detractors have responded that
athletic science is able to formulate a program of exercise that will achieve superior
results without the concerns of the spiritual origins of Yoga.

Other Christians advocate that Yoga
should be avoided completely regardless of emotional or physical benefits it
might offer, because it is tainted by its spiritual origins, and that attempts
to sanitize it do not render it spiritually neutral. They argue that because spiritual evil is
behind all non-Christian religions, any association with their forms of
devotion introduces the risk of spiritual harm, and therefore they are to be
avoided.

They also raise concerns about implications
for the witness of Christians to the world, because they believe it gives the
appearance of blending religions and communicates that many religions
lead to the True God or that divine truth can be accessed apart from
Jesus.

For the Christian, the answer can
never be “It’s just exercise, isn’t it?” Instead, it is necessary to
contemplate the wisdom of engaging with this spiritual practice of Hinduism in
light of their own beliefs about the spiritual world and make an informed evaluation
about the effectiveness of sanitizing it of spiritual elements before they conclude
how those answers compare to their own conscience as guided by the First
Commandment – “You shall have no other gods in my presence.”

Monday, May 25, 2015

My article from this week's newspapers answers a question about Meditation:Q: Is Meditation something that is
compatible with the spiritual life of a Christian, or is it a practice that
could pose potential spiritual harm?

The word meditation can be found in
many English translations of the Bible, the majority of which are in the
Psalms, particularly Psalm 119. Even
though the word is used, its context in the Psalms reflects that this is something
dramatically different from what we typically mean when we think of meditation
today.

The practice that the word meditation
typically refers to is a spiritual exercise which has its source in Eastern
religions, particularly Hinduism and Buddhism.
These religions have a fundamentally different understanding of the way
that the spiritual world functions than Christians do, and this is reflected in
their practice of meditation.

Meditation as performed and taught in
these Eastern religions has diverse outward appearances, and may follow a
variety of methods, but their goal and the mechanism by which they purport to
function reflects an opposite understanding of the direction in which spiritual
ills are cured.

In Biblical thought, the spiritual
problem lies within humans, manifested in such things as selfishness, violence,
lust, hatred, and other forms of evil; and the solution to spiritual ills is
found outside of us in the cross and resurrection of Jesus, the benefits of
which are delivered through God’s Word and the Sacraments.

In Hindu and Buddhist thought, it is
proposed that humans are really one with the divine and the realization of this
is found by looking inward through such things as meditation. So, if the Christian realizes that inside of
ourselves we find nothing but sin, filth, and evil, it would be
counter-productive to try to seek solutions by looking within oneself.

The meditation described in the
psalms also differs dramatically from Eastern forms of meditation in that it is
a thought-filled meditation where one consciously contemplates the content of
Scripture to better understand it and discern its message, while Eastern forms
of meditation encourage the practitioner to empty oneself of thought to achieve
the goal of reaching a supposed higher form of consciousness or awareness which
is not accessible through ordinary means.
In fact, contemplation would probably be a more accurate translation of
the word the Psalms use, rather than meditation.

This is also understood by Eastern
practitioners to occur because this empty-minded state is said to open one up
to the spiritual world around them, which openness then provides a form of
enlightenment through interaction with the divine. However, such a proposition assumes that
everything spiritual is good. In
contrast, a Biblical understanding of the spiritual world sees that there are
harmful elements in the spiritual world which would deceive and lead us away
from what is true, and Scripture repeatedly admonishes people to be watchful
and on guard against such things—a state which would not be compatible with the
state of spiritual vulnerability created by Eastern meditation.

While Christian might desire some of
the auxiliary benefits often attributed to Eastern meditation, such as
relaxation, mental focus, or stress relief, the use of a spiritual exercise
from a foreign spirituality which contradicts Christianity would not be and
advisable avenue by which to achieve them.
Instead, Spiritual practices like prayer and Scriptural contemplation,
along with non-spiritual relaxation and stress-relief techniques from the
medical sciences are a more appropriate way to achieve these goals without
violating their Biblically-informed conscience or compromising spiritual
truth.

Lutheranism is more than a cultural identity or a denominational label. In fact, this cultural and institutional baggage may be the primary obstacle in Lutheranism’s path.

To be a Lutheran is not dependent on a code of behavior or a set of common customs. Instead, to be a Lutheran is to receive Jesus in His Word, Body, and Blood for the forgiveness of sins in the Divine Service; and to be bearers of this pure Truth to a broken world corrupted with sin, death, and every lie of the devil and man’s own sinful heart.

While the false and misleading ideas of human religious invention are appealing to sin-blinded minds, they fail when exposed to the realities of life. It is tragic when souls are led to confusion and despair because of the false religious ideas with which they are surrounded. The Biblical doctrine taught by the Apostles and restored at the Reformation holds answers which are relevant regardless of time or place and offers assurance of forgiven sins and eternal life who all who believe its message.

I am a husband, a father, the pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church (LCMS) in Burt, IA, and track chaplain at Algona Raceway.